U.S. Envoy Pessimistic Over North Korean Nuclear Program By JIM BROOKE

Published: April 29, 2005

[Excerpt]

SEOUL, April 29 - After a week of shuttle diplomacy to revive talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the top American envoy for North Korea was asked here today "for an optimistic closing line."

"Give me week, and I will come up with one," Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, replied at a news conference after meetings in Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. "The fundamental issue is that North Korea still has not made its strategic decision to do away with its weapons."

In the 10 months since North Korea last participated in talks in Beijing, the Pyongyang leadership has publicly boasted of possessing a nuclear bomb arsenal as well as shutting down a reactor, in what is seen as a step to obtaining more bomb-making materials.

"Often when a country announces its membership in the nuclear club, the next step would be a test," Mr. Hill said, addressing a growing concern among North Korea's neighbors. "To go ahead and have a nuclear test at a time when the six-party talks are in abeyance would be extremely troublesome."

In each capital on his tour of Northeast Asia, Mr. Hill has given a news conference in which he has called for North Korea to return to the negotiating table.

"North Korea's response is rather hostile," said Mr. Hill, who was ambassador in Seoul until early this month. "The problem is that North Korea does not want to talk. We want to talk. They don't want to talk."

Mr. Hill's calls for negotiations seemed to be a strategy to make it clear in Japan, China and South Korea that the United States wants to revive the six-party process. If North Korea continues to ignore these appeals, it could set the stage for new tactics with the North.

"I don't want to get into details discussing other options, as that would undermine the six-party option," Mr. Hill said, when asked about the possibility of sanctions or of taking North Korea to the United Nations Security Council. "By definition, all those options are not as good as six-party option."

Reflecting growing tension here over the nuclear impasse, high-ranking South Korean officials have publicly called on North Korea to refrain from testing a nuclear bomb. South Korea's government, anxious to maintain good relations with its heavily armed neighbor, generally avoids criticizing the North.

But efforts to get talks back on track may have been undercut Thursday night by President Bush, who cited the North Korean leader by name 12 times in his White House press conference.

"Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps," the president said a few hours before Mr. Hill gave his news conference here.

"There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon," Mr. Bush said. "We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il to assume he can."

"The more Kim Jong Il threatens and brags, the more isolated he becomes," Mr. Bush continued, asserting that North Korea's neighbors are increasingly united against the North's nuclear bomb program.

Referring to missile defense, the president added: "Perhaps Kim Jong Il has got the capacity to launch a weapon, and wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot it down?"

South Koreans interviewed here today predicted that North Korea would not return to talks after such attacks on the supreme leader of a rigidly hierarchical society. This spring, North Korean diplomats said they would only return to the negotiating table if Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized for including North Korea earlier this year on a list of six "outposts of tyranny."

"Even though President Bush noted the importance of the six-party talks, it looks pessimistic because North Korea has now heard those bad words from President Bush," said Kim Sung-Han, a professor of Korea-United States relations at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul.

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Story Source: New York Times

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Cameroon; Diplomacy

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